Friday, September 28, 2012

The axe needed some fixing. With all the work I've been doing on the rider, I broke it. So let's do it again. First, I get a pole from another axe of a high elf, and then drill and glue some wire.

I leave enough wire so that the front part will also attach (obviously in this photo there's far too much, but always better to have spare and then cut, because once cut you cannot go back).

This is the front part attached. I'm starting to realize that such a big axe and so close to the chest might look weird.

Let's take a look at how it's looking so far, with the rider on top.

At this point, time is running out, so the process starts to be more chaotic and I'm going to mix painting and modelling at the same time. Why? Because the pose of the rider is still not convincing, but while converting the rider, I can start work con the base and dragon. So what I'm going to do now, is mask the sides of the base so I can prime it without changing the natural black of the plastic. This way, I won't have to paint it black in the end.

I'm going to prime everything in white. As usual, with Gunze Sangyo matt white using airbrush. It's a big piece so it takes some time to do this.

I said I wasn't convinced with the rider, so while priming the dragon, I break the different parts of him that determine the pose. Basically, right arm and torso union to the legs.

Also, priming thin at first is very important, because once the entire piece is covered in the same colour, you'll see all those little flaws you couldn't see while modelling and converting. In this case, there was a lot of imperfections in the unions of different mixes of putty and also, Milliput from my fingers had been slowly depositing on the flat areas of the armour in the back of the dragon, and the priming revealed it. So I use a knife to scrap it all.

After that, to ensure that all is clean before the final priming, I wash everything with soap and water.

You must be familiar by now with this classical volomir WIP photo. Drying in my towel!

I also continued the work on the rider, basically reposing all those elements I talked about, and took off one half of the axe's blade, because it was definitely a problem. I think it looks much better now.

I'm still not convinced with the rider though. He leans forward and doesn't seem like pulling the reins. I still have to rework on that.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Games Day and Golden Demon UK is finished now, and it was very nice to be able to see the event, the authentic 100% nerdiest Games Workshop congregation. The day was intense and lots of stuff to do and see, very overwhelming. Regarding the stuff that concerns us, the Golden Demon contest, for those who do not know much about GD UK, I'll tell them that it is indeed the event with the highest number of participants in the world. The painting level is not as high as the ones we see in other events in Europe, and the style GW favours in their event is quite different from the one predominant in other countries. Probably this is one of the reasons why many of the painters we know in UK have not been attending the event this year. But let's go directly into the photos.

These are photos I took once the registration closed, only from the cabinets where the finalists where placed, and only of those miniatures that I found interesting for some reason. There were many many more but I'm just showing you the ones I liked from the ones I saw at that moment (there were some that were being photographed or judged at that time).

And these are the photos I took once the winners where separated from the rest of the miniatures. Obviously some photos are repeated from the last ones.

Gold in Single 40k

Silver in Single 40k, Angelo Di Chello

Bronze in Single 40k

Gold in Open

Silver in Open

Bronze in Open

Gold in Squad 40k

Silver in Squad 40k

Bronze in Squad 40k

Gold in Monster 40k

Silver in Monster 40k

Bronze in Monster 40k

Gold in Single Fantasy, Benoit Menard

Silver in Single Fantasy

Bronze in Single Fantasy, Angelo Di Chello

Gold in Unit Fantasy

Silver in Unit Fantasy

Bronze in Unit Fantasy

Gold in Monster Fantasy

Silver in Monster Fantasy

Bronze in Monster Fantasy

Gold in diorama, Karol Rudyk

Silver in diorama, Maz Wiernikowski

Bronze in diorama, Mario Delgado

Gold in duel

Silver in duel

Gold in LOTR

Silver in LOTR

Bronze in LOTR

And this is the Slayersword from UK 2012 by Karol Rudyk, very fair winner in my opinion!